OPINION
Page 4 Tuesday, January 19, 1982 The Michigan Daily
The Mighty Braves of Michig
They haven't pissed out of the windows this
year, Norm Betts says.
No, this year the Mighty Braves of
Michigamua have not perched themselves at
the windows of their Mighty Wigwam high up in
the tower of the Michigan Union, sending
streams of Mighty Urine cascading into the
windows of the floors below them.
That was apparently last year's amusement.
Until Union Director Frank Cianciola got wind
of the practice and put a stop to it.
Howard
Witt
College seniors "to foster a spirit of loyalty for
our Alma Mater and promote good class
fellowship," according to its charter
documents, the all-male society soon grew into
a powerful and respected behind-the-scenes
force on campus.
With members drawn from every important
student group, Michigamua served as a
creative brain trust of student leaders working
to make campus life more pleasant and rewar-
ding but never taking personal credit for their
accomplishments. The Michigan Union stands
today as a major example of the Tribe's efforts.
But just as the Union has deteriorated and
grown shabby over the years, so too has its
founding group. The Union is in for a badly-
needed renovation this year; Michigamua
could use one, too.
I ASKED "On Catches Place'um No" Betts
(that's his Michigamua name) what the Tribe
of '82 has accomplished for the University
during the past year, but he again invoked his.
oath of secrecy. So did Howard Wikel, an
alumnus advisor to the Tribe whom Betts
suggested I call. I guess I'llhave to make my
own list.
" Michigamua has neither participated in the
plans for the renovation of the Union nor even
expressed a passing interest in the future of
what could be considered its own building, ac-
cording to Union Director Cianciola. No com-
ment from Chief Betts.
" Members of the Tribe have been seen
hauling beer kegs up to the sixth floor Wigwam
before the weekly Monday night meetings, in
clear violation of the Union's liquor license.
Betts denies the allegation.
" Nearly two-thirds of the Michigamua
members over the past five years have been
athletes-hardly a representative balance of
"student leaders." This year's tribe of 24
Braves consists of 13 athletes, five University
Activities Center officers, a Daily sports editor,
a yearbook editor, a Glee Club member, a
Fraternity Coordinating Council officer, an
ROTC battalion commander, and a member of
the marching band. No Daily news editors. No
Michigan Student Assembly officers. No LSA
Student Government officers. No top scholars.
No black student leaders. Betts would not say
what criteria are used to choose the "student
leaders" who comprise Michigamua.
" The Tribe has consistently made sure to in-
clude a Daily sports editor in its ranks, ap-
parently to insure laudatory coverage of
Michigamua athletes. Betts vigorously denies
this, but note how Greg DeGulis, this year's
Daily connection, was described in a
Michigamua newsletter: "Be'um most ac-
curate and complete writer ever of sports, par-
ticularly when that writing be'um about
Fighting Braves of Michigamua. 'Always Tell
Us' DeGulis always work for Tribe and will
never forget great times had in Michigamua."
On November, 13, 1981, "Always Tell Us"
DeGulis wrote a very flattering feature story in
the Daily about fellow Brave Butch "Chase'um
Truck" Woolfolk.
" The Tribe's initiation ritual has been
likened to hazing by those who have been of-
fered membership but declined. The ritual is
said to include a humiliating dousing in red
paint and mustard. No comment from Betts.
" The entire mock-Indian tradition of the
group would certainly seem to denigrate the
rich heritage and culture of Native Americans.
Betts said he didn't see it that way.
IN ALL FAIRNESS, I must point out one
constructive project the Tribe of '82 undertook
last semester, although Betts declined to com-
ment on it. In a "Sachem Report" in one of the
Tribe's newsletters-which are mailed to
Michigamua alums along with constant pleas
for donations-Betts revealed that the half-
time program at the Iowa football game
honoring Bob Ufer was arranged by this year's
Tribe. The Braves also persuaded "Sky
Walker" Canham to have the late broad-
caster's booth named for him.
Certainly this was a nice project. The
problem is, it's apparently the only one the
group has undertaken-at least according to
the newsletters. And it certainly looks pretty
feeble when compared to the Tribe's grandest
effort, the founding of the Union.
In fact, Michigamua has been resting on
laurels earned generations ago for too long. If
this were some simple social group that got
together every Monday night to have a good
time, I would hardly have grounds to criticize
it.
BUT MICHIGAMUA enjoys privileges ac-
corded it by the University that few other
student groups are granted. For one, the Tribe
was given a free lease to its Union meeting
room in perpetuity. Also, Michigamua mem-
Imua
bers have used University athletic facilities -_t'
special reduced rates. Every April, the Brave
hold an initiation party at the University'
plush Radrick Farms Golf Course-for free.
The strong ties between the University atxd
Michigamua were documented in 1979 by the
then-Department of Health, Education, a'd
Welf are, which found Michigamua-ani.
therefore the University-guilty of sdex'
discrimination. A secret women's socie
Adara, was established in answer to the fede af
charges.
So because of its special privilege;*
Michigamua is a fair target for criticism. Tli
Tribe owes something to the University corm
munity. Something more than piss out of its
windows.
Although nearly everything I've written in
this column is supposed to be top secret, you
can find a lot of it at the Bentley Historical
Library up on North Campus. It's really kind of
depressing looking through 78 years of
Michigamua history-depressing because you
realize how far this once-productive and
fascinating forum for student leaders has slip-
ped.
At the beginning of our interview last week,
Norm Betts told me, "I can't reveal much of
what goes on in the group. But I can say that
Michigamua exists for the betterment of the
University, not for the betterment of the in-
dividual members."
I'd like to believe you, Chief. But I just can't.
Witt-'s column appears every Tuesday.
Betts won't say what the Mighty group is
doing for fun this year. The Michigan football
star says he can't. As the Big Chief, or
"Sachem," of the Secret Tribe of Michigamua,
his lips are sealed. On pain of death, or piss,
presumably.
THE SECRET TRIBE of Michigamua. Such
notable University alums as Gerald "Flippum
Back" Ford (members of. the Tribe adopt
pseudo-Indian nicknames), Don "Sky Walker"
Canham, and Bob "Running Nose" Ufer were
proud Michigamua braves.
And they had a lot to be proud of. Founded
some 78 years ago by a handful of Literary
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Weasel
Vol. XCII, No. 89
420 Mayrnord St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
CAD MORNING,
VoPM ATALEfIG VEPARTMENT.
MAY I HELP YOU?
k}! Y BALL!
16 130 THERE ?
A,% ff=
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-,tea t
WHOM MAY I SAY
IS CALLING?
UHHH " " " . A
FRIEND FROM THE
LONE STAR STATE.
HOLD ON, PLEASE.
2tL Rrr HIM THROYA4.
i
=YFEAAM s T ils?
141 130! You KNM4 wE
7HtNK You WERE ABzLuTEL.Y
M6*T ABOW "SOME MIN65
BEINb PIORE iMFORTMr r WA
MONF-Y. ' So W TALKED it 6YM
DOWN 140M IWD WERE PREPARED
TO SWEE'( OUR OFFER. N SIT.
ttow DDES 1"s scumv.,
"GOVERNOR 80 $tH&4$S fMM
OF TEXAS."
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LOCK Z REALLY
APPR6ul ti: Au- ME TidCUaLE
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NOW PO-P ON OlOT A
MIN076 THEM, 80! W*J
YCV LIKE 7a SfAR OPWs17E
J .P.. &A "DALLAS?
n "t' GUST W
SAME, PUT -
$b, J{AVE YCO EVER
AGTomx( MET
DOLLY PAMN ?
No, ANP r PoNY- f
By Robert Lence
OKCAYS OKAY.,
AIM i.smN (45, cAmI5 TS
IS CuRF, fWAL- ofF6 IF YOO)
A&W -MCAM MAN HERE
ANDP CNAA R*.US -
KING(,of THE HTIRE.
UNIVERSE~!
DOES THAT
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Bo's
gain represents
a loss for
THE UNIVERSITY community
was captivated recently by
Michigan football coach Bo Schem-
bechler's possible move to the more
profitable pastures of Texas A&M. But
the incident merited attention not for
whether Bo would stay or Bo would go,
but for the underlying problem it
revealed. Bo and his saga symbolize
the problems created by the Univer-
sity 's overemphasis on its football
program.
The University's football program,
in its current state, has lost sight of the
purpose that any collegiate sport once
had and should have-that of a charac-
ter-building extracurricular activity.
The haggling over Bo's, contract and
the enormous sums of money being
tossed around to keep him in Ann Ar-
bor. clearly illustrate that Michigan
football has evolved from an amateur
sport into something resembling a
professional business.
The University's football program,
and apparently the athletic depar-
tment as a whole, seems to be run
almost without regard for the players'
welfare. Sadly, at Michigan,
Wolverines too often are players first
and students second. What is worse,
the University administration supports
this subjugation of its academic ideals
by engaging in the hundred-thousand-
dollar bidding war for a football coach.
Bo's decision to remain at the
University was heavily influenced by
economic considerations, despite the
emphasis the media placed on Bo's
loyalty. Bo stayed for loyalty-and for
an as yet unrevealed salary hike,
rumored promises of inheritance of the
athletic director's position, and an
alumnus gift of a $150,000 pizza parlor
located (of all places) on the Ohio State
campus. The University package
clearly shows that Bo will not be in the
poorhouse, making loyalty much
p easier for Bo to exhibit.
R T4 . ..v.--- ---. .L .L LI.. ... -LL1L.
University
-
its head coach. Canham and his
athletic department should stop
stalling and go public with Bo's salary
hike.
The big-business style of college.
football, exemplified by these
dealings, has seriously compromised
the academic standards of the Univer-
sity. In the quest to recruit a bigger
and better team, academic standards
are inconsistently applied for the
benefit of the football squad. Ad-
missions directors have conceded that
football stars often do not meet the
academic requirements for ad-
missions that an average student does.
The University should have used
Bo's possible move as an opportunity
to redirect its bloated athletic program
through application of some of its
much heralded "smaller but better''
principles.
The University could have begun to
put football into perspective by
denying Bo a salary hike, even at the
cost of his departure, and even at the
loss of alumni donations such a move
would likely trigger.
Financially, this would not have
been a pragmatic move. And the
University knows it. The athletic
department has an impressive source
of revenue in its top-rated football
team. Football especially is a major
draw for alumni donations.
But even if denying a raise to Bo
would have hurt the football program
and brought financial loss to the
University, it would have been a
positive step in tempering the excesses.
of University athletics. The academic
standards of the Univer-
sity-presumably a vital concern-
should not be tampered with in order to
accommodate the needs of the athletic
department. The University should
start putting football in its appropriate
place by strictly enforcing its ad-
mission policies.
LIMA, OHIO-Rows of ripe
Ohio tomatoes were ready to
pick, and a family of workers
bent over the plants late on a
Sunday autumn afternoon trying
to make up for worktime lost
due to heavy rains. Among them
was a small,, handsome boy,
about 9 or 10 years old, arms and
neck tanned from long days in the
sun.
As I walked through the tomato
field, slipping in troughs muddied
by the rain, the boy stopped
working. I felt his eyes follow me.
as the eyes of farmworkers
always follow any stranger en-
tering the field. The boy may
have thought I would report him
for being there, since he was ob-
viously under 14, the legal age for
agricultural work in Ohio..
SCENES LIKE this are com-
mon in Ohio, as they are almost
anywhere families of workers are
picking fruits and vegetables by
hand-usually on small family-
owned farms. During harvests,
laws which restrict child labor
are flouted with impunity. But
neither the farmers nor the
families they employ could
tolerate real enforcement: One
party needs the workforce and
the other needs the work.
In this sense, child labor is not
just a problem to jar the social
conscience. To understand why it
persists, one must understand the
marginal economics of the crops
involved, and the agri-economic
forces at work in northwest Ohio.
Fruit and vegetable production
in this part of the country was
worth just over $91 million in
1980, and migrant workers from
Texas accounted for much of the
hand labor force. They work for
"small" farmers whose
operations are not yet totally
mechanized. But this is no
pleasant symbiosis. Real
hostilities and a rapidly changing
agricultural system have locked
the migrants and the small far-
mers into a feudal interdepen-
dence, with both sides struggling
to survive.
FOR THE MIGRANTS, sur-
The plight
of Ohio's
m igran t farm
workers
By Paula Diperna
"free housing," only to find it
consists of decrepit wood cabins,
where paper napkins repair holes
in screens, and a sheet of car-
dboard streaked with the words
"Fire Exit" is placed over a hole
in the wall.
Frank Delgado, a farmworker
and the head of his household,
gave a hearty laugh when I asked
him to describe what he's ex-
perienced since he started farm
work at the age of 13. It was a
laugh that said I never really
could know.
"JUST LOK around you," he
directed. He leaned back on a
bare mattress stained by dirt and
years of summer use, which
rested on concrete blocks. Near-
by, an equally stained and ripped
maroon armchair oozed its stuf-
fing.
"In this camp, nobody drinks
the water," he said. "There is no,
place to take a shower. When we
arrive every year, the place is
too dirty-filthy. The farmer
knows all about these things, but
he does nothing about it. Nobody
says anything about it, but there
is nothing you can say anyway."
It was early evening and out-
side children played touch foot-
ball with a giant cucumber that
U^A anx,2 _nn %, __ _ _ l,.«
was all she had besides her work
clothes.
TO HER, "The best thing about
picking is finishing. The worst
thing is when cucumbers for
pickles get all yellow and mushy,
and you touch them by mistake.
Pickles are harder than
tomatoes, because you have to
turn the plants back the way they
were, so new pickles will grow. In
tomatoes, you don't have to turn
the plants over, and you can see
where you stopped because you
just pick the red ones-all you
can get."
Survival for migrant workers
also means tolerating chronic
exposure to the pesticides and
other toxic chemicals sprayed on
crops to maintain yields and
produce uniform size and color.
Children whose bodies still are
developing are especially
vulnerable to toxic agents. Those
who pick! crops Itouch sprayed
foliage -regularly, sometimes
having to use the leaves for toilet
paper in. fields where there
usually is no clean water or por-
table toilets. When I talked with
children in Vicki's camp who were
playing with an empty pesticide
container, I told them to throw
the bucket away because it had
held a poison. "What's that?" a
ed. As. one farmer lamented, 40
referring to demands by Ohio's
migrant union, the Farm labor
Organizing Committee, "How
can you come in here and make
these canneries pay more than
they are willing to pay? They can
get what they need in paste from
Califnornia if our prices go too
high."
UNDER THESE strains, as
well as the pressure to sell outto@
large conglomerates, farmers of-
ten turn their frustrations on the
migrants: "If they keep up this
agitation, we'll all be out of
work." Such farmers cannot
really afford , the $85,000 10
$120,000 harvester machines that
would free them from the dilemy
ma of employing-and
housing-immigrants.
Some of them claim that the.
filthy camp where Frank
Delgado lives in an exception. IA
my experience, however, it is the
rule. Nevertheless, one relatively
successful farmer looked me
square in the eye and said,
"These people have it good. They
don't care about us. You. ne~ver
know when they'll show up at the
beginning of the year, or when
they'll leave to go home. How can
we run a business like that?
Then there is racism, which is
frighteningly on the surface in
Ohio. Most farmers are white.
Most of the pickers I saw were
either black or Hispanic. The
same farmer who bemoaned
migrant labor irresponsibility
reported with generalized disgust
the day that "three black men
drove up in a car to one of my
fields, filled their trunks with
melons and drove away. I didn't
do anything because I didn't get
to this age by fighting colored
people."
WHILE ADUILT migrants
wait for the day when they can
earn high enough wages to free
their own children from working,
their manual labor and the small
farms alike rapidly are being
replaced by giant mechanized
one..ann._Al